How Fortune Brings Two Old Friends Together

THE SITUATION of the little vessel was in reality terrific. A fierce
westerly wind, encountering the receding tide, occasioned a prodigious
swell in the centre of the channel; and even near shore, the waves lashed
themselves with so much fury against the rocky head-land before mentioned,
that Kyrle and his servant were covered with spray and foam. There was
yet sufficient twilight in the sky, to enable them to discern objects on
the river, and the full autumnal moon, which ever and anon, shot, like
a flying ghost, from one dark mass of vapour to another, revealed them
at intervals with a distinctness scarcely inferior to that of day. The
object of the pleasure-boat seemed to be that of reaching the anchorage
above alluded to, and with this view the helmsman held her head as close
to the wind as a reefed mainsail and heavy swell would allow him. The white
canvass, as the boat came foaming and roaring towards the spectators, appeared
half drenched in brine from the breaking of the sea against the windward
bow. The appearance of the vessel was such as to draw frequent ejaculations
of compassion from Lowry and the boatmen, and to make Kyrle Daly's heart
sink low with fear and anxiety. At one time, she was seen on the ridge
of a broken wave, showing her keel to the moonlight, and bending her white
and glistening sails over the dark gulf upon her lee. At another, the liquid
mountain rolled away and left her buried in the trough, while her vane
alone was visible to the landsmen, and the surges leaping and whitening
in the moonshine, seemed hurrying to overwhelm and engulf their victim.
Again, however, suddenly emerging into the light, she seemed to ride the
waters in derision, and left the angry monsters roaring in her wake.

"She never'll do it, I'm in dread," said Lowry, bending an
inquisitive glance on the boatman. The latter was viewing intently, and
with a grim smile, the gallant battle made by the little vessel against
the elements.

"'Tis a good boy that has the rudder in his hand," he said;
"and as for their lives, 'tis the same Lord that is on the water as
on the land. When their hour is come, on sea or shore, 'tis all the same
to 'em. I wouldn't wondther if he done it yet. Ah, that swell put him off
of it. He must make another tack. 'Tis a right good boy that houlds the
rudder."

"What?" exclaimed Kyrle, "do you think it will be necessary
for them to pot out into the tide again?"

"Indeed I don't say she'll ever do without it," said the old
boatman, still keeping his eyes fixed on the Nora Creina. "There she
comes round. She spins about like a top, God bless her!" Then putting
his huge chapped hands at either side of his mouth, so as to form a kind
of speaking trumpet, he cried out in a voice as loud and hoarse as that
of the surges that rolled between them, "Ahoy! Ahoy! Have an oar out
in the bow, or she'll miss-stay in the swell."

"Thank you, thank you, it is done already!" shouted the helmsman
in answer—"Kyrle, my boy, how are you? Kyrle, have a good fire for
us when we go in. This is cold work."

Notwithstanding the vigour and confidence which spoke in the accents
of the hardy helmsman, Kyrle Daly, when he saw the vessel once more shoot
out into the deep, felt as if he had been listening to the last farewell
of his friend. He could not return his gallant greeting, and remained with
his head leaning forward, and his arm outstretched, and trembling, while
his eyes followed the track of the pleasure-boat. Close behind him stood
Lowry—his shoulder raised against the wind, and his hand placed over that
ear on which it blew—clacking his tongue against his palate for pity, and
indulging in many sentiments of commiseration for "Masther Hardress!"
and "the family," not forgetting "Danny the Lord,"
and his sister, "Fighting Poll of the Reeks."

We shall follow the vessel in her brief but daring course. The young
helmsman has been already slightly introduced to the reader in the second
chapter of this history, but the change which circumstances had since effected
in his appearance, renders it well worthy of our pains to describe his
person and bearing with more accuracy and distinctness. His figure was
tall, and distinguished by that muscularity and firmness of set, which
characterizes the inhabitants of the south-west of Europe. His attitude,
as he kept one hand on the rudder, and his eye fixed upon the foresail,
was such as displayed his form to extreme advantage. It was erect, composed
and manly. Every movement seemed to be dictated by a judgment perfectly
at ease, and a will that, far from being depressed, had caught a degree
of fire and excitement from the imminent dangers with which it had to struggle.
The warm and heroic flush upon his cheek could not be discovered in the
pale and unequal light that shone upon him, but the settled and steady
lustre of his large dark eye, over which, not even the slightest contraction
of the arched brow could he discerned; the perfect calmness of his manner,
and the half smiling expression of his mouth, (that feature, which of all
others is most traitorous to the dissembling coward) bespoke a mind and
heart that were pleased to encounter danger, and well calculated to surmount
it. It was such a figure as would have at once awakened associations in
the beholder's mind, of camps and action, of states confounded in their
councils, and nations overrun by sudden conquest. His features were brightened
by a lofty and confident enthusiasm, such as the imagination might ascribe
to the Royal Adventurer of Sweden, as he drew his sword on his beleaguers
at Belgrade. His forehead was ample and intellectual in its character;
his hair "coal-black" and curling; his complexion of that rich
deep Gipsy yellow, which, shewing as it did the healthy bloom beneath,
was far nobler in its character than the feminine white and red. The lower
portion of his physiognomy was finely and delicately turned, and a set
of teeth as white as those of a young beagle, gave infinite vivacity to
the expression of his lips. The countenance was such an one as men seldom
look upon, but when once beheld can never be forgotten.

On a seat at the weather side sat a young girl, her slight person wrapped
in a blue cloak, while her eyes were raised to the cheerful face of the
helmsman as if from him she derived all her hope and her security. The
wind had blown back the hood from her shoulders and the head and countenance
which thus "unmasked their beauty to the moon" were turned with
a Sylph-like grace and lightness. The mass of curly hair which was blown
over her left temple, seemed of a pale gold, that harmonized well with
the excelling fairness and purity of her complexion; and the expression
of her countenance was tender, affectionate and confiding.

In the bow sat a being who did not share the beauty of his companions.
He bore a prodigious hunch upon his shoulders, which however did not prevent
his using his limbs with agility and even strength, as he tended the foresail,
and bustled from side to side with an air of the utmost coolness and indifference.
His features were not disagreeable, and were distinguished by that look
of pert shrewdness which marks the low inhabitant of a city, and vents
itself in vulgar cant, and in ridicule of the honest and wondering ignorance
of rustic simplicity.

Such were the individuals whom the spirit of the tempest appeared at
this moment to hold environed by his hundred perils; and such was the manner
in which they prepared to encounter their destiny.

"Mind your hand, Mr. Hardress," said the boatman, in a careless
tone, 'we are in the tide."

It required the hand of an experienced helmsman to bring the little
vessel through the danger which he thus announced. An immense, overtopping
billow, capped in foam, came thundering downward like an avalanche upon
her side. In spite of the precautions of Hardress, and the practised skill
with which he timed the motion of the wave, as one would take a ball upon
the bound, or a hunter on the rise—the bowsprit dipped and cracked like
a withered sapling, a whole ton of water was flung over the stern, drenching
the crew as completely as if they had been drawn through the river. The
boat seemed to stagger and lose her way like a stricken hart, and lay for
a moment weltering in the gloomy chasm in which the wasted wave had left
her. A low and smothered scream was breaking from the female, when her
eye again met that of Hardress Cregan, and her lip though pale and quivering
was silent. "That was right well done, sir:" said Danny Mann,
as the boat once more cleft the breakers on her landward course.

"A minute sooner, or a minute later, up with the hand, would put
it all into her."

"A second would have done it," said Hardress, "but all
is well now. A charming night this would be" he continued smiling
on the girlXX" for beaver and feathers."

This jest produced a short hysteric laugh, in answer, which was rather
startling than agreeable to the person who addressed her. In a few minutes
after, and without any more considerable disaster, the vessel dropped her
peek, and ran alongside the rocks on which Kyrle Daly was expecting them.

"Remain in the boat," said Hardress, addressing the girl:
while he fastened the hood over her head;—"I see that talkative fellow,
Looby, above on the rocks. I will procure you an unoccupied room, if possible,
in the cottage, as a neighbour and relative of Danny Mann. Endeavour to
conceal your countenance, and speak as little as possible. We are ruined,
if I should be seen paying you any attention."

"And am I not to see you to-night again?" said the girl, in
a broken and affectionate accent.

"My own love, I would not go to rest without taking leave of you
for all the world. Be satisfied" he added, pressing her hand tenderly,
and patting her upturned cheek. "You are a noble girl. Go, pray—pray
and return thanks for your husband's life as he shall do for your's. I
thought we should have supped in heaven. Dan!" he continued aloud,
calling to the boatman "take care of your sister."

"His sisther!" echoed Lowry Looby on the rocks. "Oh,
murther, is Fighting Poll of the Reeks aboard too? Why then he needn't
bid Danny to take care of her, for she is well able to do that job for
herself."

Hardress leaped out upon the shore and was received by Kyrle Daly with
a warmth and delight proportioned to the anxiety which he had previously
experienced.

"My dear fellow, I thought I should have never seen you on your
feet again. A thousand and a hundred thousand welcomes! Lowry, run to the
house, and get dinner hastened—Stay!—Hardress, have you any things on board?"

"Only a small trunk and my gun—you would for ever oblige me, Kyrle,
by procuring a comfortable lodging—if you have no room to spare, for this
poor fellow of mine and his sister. He is sickly, and you know he is my
foster brother."

"He shall be taken care of—I have a room—come along—you are dripping
wet. Lowry, take up Mr. Cregan's trunk and gun to the cottage. Come along,
Hardress, you will catch your death of cold. Pooh! are you afraid Fighting
Poll will break her tender limbs that you look back and watch her so closely?"

"No—no, my dear Daly—but I am afraid that fellow—Booby— Looby—(what's
his stupid name?)—will break my trunk;— he is watching the woman and peering
about her, instead of minding what he is doing. But come along!—Well, Kyrle,
how are you? I saw you all in the window to-day when I was sailing by."

"Yes—you edified my mother with that little feat you performed
at the expense of the fishermen."

"Ah, no—was she looking at that, though? I shall not be able to
show my face to her this month to come. Hallo, you sir, Booby! Looby, come
along! Do you remain long in the west, Kyrle?"

"As long as you will take a bed in the cottage with me. But we
will talk of this when you have changed your dress and dined. You came
on the very point of time. Rem acu tetigisti, as our old college
tutor Doyle would say. Mrs. Frawley was just preparing to dish me a roast
duck. I bless the wind, all boisterous as it was, that blew you on these
shores, for I thought I should have spent a lonesome evening, with the
recollections of merry old times, like so many evil familiars, to dine,
and sup, and sleep with me. But now that we are met again, farewell the
past! The present and the future shall furnish our entertainment, after
we have done with the roast duck."

"The fume of which salutes my sense at this moment with no disagreeable
odour" said Hardress, following his friend into the little hall of
the cottage. "Mrs. Frawley, as fat and fair and rosy as ever! Well,
Mrs. Frawley, how do you and the cows get on? Has any villainous imp been
making pishogs over your keelers? Does the cream mount? Does the
butter break? Have you got the devil well out of your churn?"

"Oh, fie, masther Cregan, to go spake of such a thing at all. Oh,
vo, a vich-o, you're drown'ded wet, an' that's what you are. Nelly, eroo,
bring hether the candle. Oh, sir, you never will get over it."

"Never mind, Mrs. Frawley. I'll be stout enough to dance at your
wedding yet." "My wedding, a-vourneen!" returned the buxom
dairy-woman, in a gentle scream of surprise, not unqualified however by
a gracious smile, "Oyeh, if you never fut a moneen till then!—Make
haste hether with the candle, Nelly, eroo, what are you doing?"

Nelly, not altogether point device in her attire, at length appeared
with a light to conduct the gentlemen to their chamber; while Mrs. Frawley
returned to the kitchen. This accident of the stranger's arrival was of
fatal consequence to three individuals in the cottage; namely, two fat
chickens and a turkey pout, upon whom sentence of death was immediately
pronounced and executed, without more form of law than might go to the
hanging of a Croppy. Mrs. Frawley, meantime, fulfilled the office of Sheriff
on the occasion, ejaculating, out of a smiling reverie, while she gazed
listlessly on the blood of the innocent victims, "Why then I declare
that Misther Hardress is a mighty pleasant gentleman."

In the meantime, Lowry Looby was executing the commission he had received
with regard to Mr. Cregan's trunk. Lowry, who was just as fond of obtaining,
as of communicating strange intelligence, had his own good reasons for
standing in awe of the far-famed Fighting Poll of the Reeks, who was renowned
in all the western fairs, as a fearless, whiskey drinking virago, over
six-feet in her stocking vamps, and standing no more in awe of the gallows
than she might of her mother's arms. It may at once be seen that a character
of this description was the very last that could have been personated with
any success by the lovely young creature who accompanied Hardress, and
indeed her only chance of escaping detection consisted in the unobtrusiveness
of the attempt she made, and the care she used in concealing her features.
The first circumstance that excited the astonishment of Lowry, as he stood
bowing with his hat off, upon the rocks, while Danny the Lord assisted
her to land, was the comparative diminutiveness of her stature, and the
apparent slightness of her form.

"Your sarvent, Mrs. Naughten," he said in a most insinuating
accent. "I hope I see you well in your health, ma'am. You wouldn't
remember a boy of the Looby's at all, you met of a time at Nelly Hewsan's
wake, westwards, (heaven rest her soul this night!) That was the place
where the great giving-out was, surely."

To this gentle remembrance of old merry times, the female in the blue
cloak only answered by a slight, short courtesy, while she drew the hood
closer about her face, and began, though with a feeble and tottering step,
to ascend the rocks.

"Bread, an'—beef, an'—tay an'—whiskey an'—turkies an'—cakes—an'
every thing that the heart could like," the officious Lowry continued
following the pseudo amazon among the stones and sea-weed and marvelling
not a little at her unaccustomed taciturnity. "The Hewsans could well
afford it, they were strong, snug farmers, relations o' your own, I'm thinking,
ma'am. Oh, vo! sure I forgot the trunk and there's Mr. Hardress calling
to me. Larry Kett," he continued, addressing the old boatman beforementioned,
"will you show Mrs. Naughten the way to the house while I'm getting
the thrunk out o' the boat; an' if you want a fire o' turf or a gwal
o' piatees, Mrs. Frawley will let you have 'em an' welcome."

The old boatman willingly came into terms so easy and advantageous;
and the fair counterfeit hurried on, well pleased at the exchange of companions.
Lowry in the meantime returned to the boat, and stole into conversation
with Danny the Lord, whom, in fear of his sneering satirical temper, he
always treated with nearly as much respect as if his title were not so
purely a thing of courtesy. Danny Mann, on the other hand, received his
attentions with but little complaisance; for he looked on Lowry as a foolish,
troublesome fellow, whose property in words (like the estate of many a
young absentee) far overbalanced his discretion and ability in their employment.
He had often told Looby in confidence, "that it would be well for
him he had a bigger head an' a smaller mouth," alluding to that peculiar
conformation of Lowry's upper man with which the reader has been already
made acquainted. The country people, (who are never at a loss for a simile)
when they saw this long-legged fellow, following the sharp-faced little
hunch-back from place to place, used to lean on their spades, and call
the attention of their companions to "the wran an' the cuckoo, goen'
the road."

The "cuckoo" now found the "wran" employed in coiling
up a wet cable on the fore-castle, while he sang in a voice that more nearly
resembled the grunting of a pig at the approach of rain, than the melody
of the sweet songstress of the hedges above named:—

"How does the world use Misther Mann this evening?" was the
form of Lowry's first greeting, as he bent over the gun-wale of the stern,
and laid his huge paws on the small trunk.

"As you see me Lowry," was the reply.

"A smart evening ye had of it."

"Purty fair for de matter o' dat."

"Dear knows, its a wondther ye worn't drown'ded. 'Twas blown' a
harico. An' you singen' now as if you wor comen' from a jig-house,
or a wake, or a weddin'. A' then tell me, now, Misther Mann, wasn't it
your thought when you wor abroad, that time, how long it was since you
were with the priest before?"

"I tought o' dat first, Lowry, an' I tried to say a prayer, but
it was so long from me since I did de like before, dat I might as well
try to talk latin, or any oder book-larning. But sure if I tought o' myself
rightly, dere wasn't de laste fear of us, for I had a book o' Saint Margaret's
confessions in me buzzom, an' as long as I'd have dat, I,tnew dat if de
boat was to go down under me itself, she'd come up again."

"Erra, no!"

"Iss, dear knows."

"I wisht I had one of 'em," said Lowry, "I do be often
goen' in boats across the Cratloe, an' them places."

"You'd have no business of it, Lowry. Dem dat's born for one death,
has no reason to be afeerd of anoder."

"Gondoutha! You're welcome to your joke this evening. Well, if
I was to put my eyes upon sticks, Misther Mann, I never would know your
sisther again."

"She grew a dale, I b'lieve."

"Grew?—If she did, its like the cow's tail, downwards. Why, she
isn't, to say, taller than myself, now, in place o' being the head an'
two shoulders above me. An' she isn't at all the rattlen' girl she was
of ould. She didn't spake a word."

"An' dat's a failing, dat's new to both o' ye," said his lordship,
"but Poll made a vow again talken' of a Tuesday, bekeys it was of
a Tuesday her first child died, an' dey said he was hoist away be de good
people, while Poll was gossiping wit Ned Hayes, over a glass at de public."

"And that's her raison!"

"Dat's her riason."

"An' in regard o' the drink?"

"Oh, she's greatly altered dat way too, dough 'twas greatly again'
natur. A lime-burner's bag was notten to her for soaken formerly, but now
she'd take no more dan a wet spunge."

"That's great, surely. An' about the cursen' an' swearen'?"

"Cursen'? You'd no more find a curse after her, dan you would after
de clargy. An' tisn't dat itself, but you wouldn't get a crooked word outside
her lips, from year's end to year's end."

"Why then, it was long from her to be so mealy-mouthed when I knew
her. An' does she lift a hand at the fair at all now? Oyeh, what a terrible
'oman she was, comen' again a man with her stocken off, an' a stone in
the foot of it!"

"She was. Well, she wouldn't raise her hand to a chicken, now."

"That flogs cock-fighting."

"Only, I'll tell you in one case. She's apt to be contrary to any
one dat would be comen' discoorsen' her of a Tuesday at all, or peepen'
or spyen' about her, she's so vexed in herself not to be able to make 'em
an answer. It used to be a word an' a blow wit her, but now as she can't
have de word, 'tis de blow comes mostly first, and she did n't make e'er
a vow again' dat."

"Shasthone!" exclaimed Lowry, who laid up this hint for his
own edification. "Great changes, surely. Well, Misther Mann, an' will
you tell me now if you plase, is your master goen' westwards in the boat
to-morrow?"

"I don't know, an' not maken' you a short answer, Lowry—I don't
care. And a word more on de hack o' dat again, aldough I have a sort of
a rattlen' regard for you, still an' all, I'd rader be taking a noggin
o' whiskey, to warm de heart in me dis cold night, dan listening to your
talken' dere. Dat I may be happy, but I would, an' dat's as good as if
I was after taking all de books in Ireland of it."

This hint put an end to the conversation for the present, and Danny
the Lord (who exercised over Lowry Looby an influence somewhat similar
to that which tied Master Matthew to the heels of Bobadil) adjourned with
that loquacious person to the comforts of Mrs. Frawley's fire-side.